


Dear Rose

by James_Austin_Valiant



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Love Letters, Other, Reflection, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 02:09:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5690542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/James_Austin_Valiant/pseuds/James_Austin_Valiant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Twelfth Doctor writes Rose a letter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Rose

Dear Rose,

I’ve started this letter a thousand different times, with a many different hands and few faces at the helm. Every time, every blasted time, it doesn’t come out right, or I use the wrong words, or I can’t say precisely what it is I want to say...and how could I, Rose? How could I? I’m not much in the overwhelming span of the universe, just a traveler doing the best he can to right a few wrongs and save a few lives, here and there. But I was never so simple, never ever really that simple. I would meet people, it would become my friends sometimes more than that and it was difficult to separate those relationships from what I set out to do in the first place.

I knew you were coming, and yet I didn't. Something from past regeneration clued me into you, but I will not hold that against you. Bad Wolf, Rose Tyler - just the girl working in the shop who happen to encounter beings made of living classic. There I was, after then per usual, unsure if I really wanted to do this again; that is, take on another companion, another potential for loss in the TARDIS. Do you have those first words etched on your memory like I do? “Nice to meet you, Rose...now run for your life!” 

You were there for a lot of it, when I learned how to be the Doctor again. It'd been so long since I had to save the earth, I forgotten what kind of fun it could be. The danger, the treachery, the excitement, the dark humor of it-it was exactly what I needed to remember. I couldn't ask for anyone better to be there alongside me but you. The Slitheen, the Daleks, the future, the past and Rose - never a better prescription written to aid a heartbroken traveler. And you were there when I changed. It had been so long since someone had been there to see me regenerate. But you took it all in and helped me adjust. And we were happy, I was happier than I have been in a long time. For a 900-year-old time traveler, that's saying a lot. 

We saw so much together, so much of human history, so much of alien world some different races.I never wanted it to end, but you being human and me being a Time Lord, I knew that no matter what our adventures were limited. But I never expected to lose you, Rose - lose you to some alternate dimension, an impenetrable barrier - and then to have you back, but In a far too fleeting sense. Sure, I had Martha, Donna, Captain Jack - but none were Rose Tyler. And I think about that day on the beach so often and I regret not telling you…

I've change faces since then. Twice, to be precise. I was a younger looking man with an affinity for tweed and bowties - because bowties are cool. It was Amy, Rory and I stumbling through the universe in the TARDIS, then River came along and I married her...but you must understand, my dear Rose. River was my wife and my companion, but that does not for any reason lessen my affection for you. I was married before you and after you and...regeneration is an odd thing to explain, I suppose? In any given moment, I can change face, gender, size or shape - very hard to explain indeed. But River and I had a beginning, middle and end, just like you and I, Rose. 

This new body is somewhat different. Clara...by the stars, I remember Clara, but I can’t see her face. Why can’t I see her face, Rose? I know she and I traveled together, spent a fair amount of time together solving crises and perhaps causing two or three hundred...but I can’t see her face. With this new outlook, this gruff demeanor and my twisted eyebrows, my older face, plain slacks and burgundy jacket, I cannot see her face. But I know I can still see yours, Rose. Every time I face a challenge that requires some degree of compassion, a sort of naïveté to a degree...anytime I need to feel less lonely, to feel like I can be pulled back from the precipice of doing too much, forgetting the simple act of enjoying who I am, where I’m going and where I’ve been - I think of you, Rose. I think of your soft smile and laugh, the way your fingers gripped my hands. You are permanently etched in my memory, no matter how many regenerations I have left until I am finished. You are the one in my thoughts, Rose, and I just wanted to let you know that.

Love always,  
The Doctor


End file.
